Relief Terrain Pack (RTP) v3 on AssetStore

Hello Tom,
I'm still fighting over to get Sunshine to work with RTP.
(As you already now from the Sunshine thread)
Sunshine thread

Although I managed to take out the shadow caster/collector passes without an error and added Sunshine example code (most of it I couldn't managed to see any shadow (but the Volumetric Scattering is there)
Can you guide me as where to make changes that PolyVector has mentioned?
or even better is it OK to share a small project with PolyVector that contains RTP?

Thanks.

 

Hi again, I'm getting this error when trying to use 8 splat textures:
Problem with number of layers, try to reassign ReliefTerrain component script on this terrain...
I have 8 splats and the relief shader is set to 8 layers in one pass mode.
I would try reassigning the component but something tells me it wouldn't work and I will lose all my settings - is there a way around this?

 

You're not supposed to alter number of layers after RTP has been added to the terrain. So, solution is - remove RTP, make terrain with 8 layers, assign RTP again. This means - you loose some settings, so you need to write them down in the worst case. You can try to use preset functionality, but you can not use resore presets that have different layer number defined (when saving preset).

Tom

 

Answered on sunshine thread.

 

Ah ok thanks Tom

 

hey Tom, have you had a chance to try RTP in the unity 5 beta yet? Will RTP be able to take advantage of the new lighting systems in Unity 5?

 

Same question as @philwinkel: what are your plans for Unity 5 support?

 

I'm just about looking again at U5 beta 9 (last time I've inspected beta1). Anyway stay cool - I won't skip RTP in U5.

Tom

 

Tom

I'm having trouble getting my textures to work with the specularity in derrered rendering mode. It works fine in forward rendering mode. Is there something i'm missing here. Working with Unity 4.6.

 

Follow my PBL videos (links exposed on the first page of the thread).

Tom

 

Any suggestions for convincing high quality terrain textures? Should I go for procedural substances for example?

EDIT. so overall does people make their own height maps + normal maps with appropriate softwares or is there "easy" way just stack enough $$ ? I have tried to google etc and search asset store for textures including normal + height maps

 

Good day,
I have an issue with RTP. I have 12 textures added, first pass and add pass is enabled. When I paint texture 1-4, everything is OK, but when I select texture 4-12, this error is occurred:

IndexOutOfRangeException: Array index is out of range.
ReliefTerrainEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/ReliefPack/Editor/ReliefTerrain/ReliefTerrainEditor.cs:1299)
UnityEditor.InspectorWindow.DrawEditor (UnityEditor.Editor editor, Int32 editorIndex, Boolean forceDirty, System.Boolean& showImportedObjectBarNext, UnityEngine.Rect& importedObjectBarRect, Boolean eyeDropperDirty)
UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()

and second is warning:

Unexpected top level layout group! Missing GUILayout.EndScrollView/EndVertical/EndHorizontal?
UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()

What I'm doing wrong.

 

Will take a look on my side ASAP. 12 layers. One terrain object ?

Tom

P.S. Apart from script bug It's not much advisable to use 12 layers. It's quite expensive. Try stick to 8 layers. You can use different textures on different terrains (grouping - described in doc and wroking modes video) or sticked geom blend (video will be available later).

 

Hi, sorry if this already has been asked but Iam not sure how to even search for it correctly. Have not found it in your video tutorials however. I've tried using RTP a bit already but if I paint down textures they have no blending to other ground textures where they contact. It's always sharp edge and I don't know how to change it to behave more like the standard unity terrain. Also the brush is not round anymore and more like many cubes propably the same issue as it doesn't blend. I just try to use it on standard Unity terrain, so no heightmap, color maps or anything else available. Another thing is. Every time I load the scene everything is black. If I hit run and stop everything is fine again. Ok about this issue I'm sure the answer can be found in here somewhere, just not sure how to search in a thread only and as I ask either I hope it's ok to add that second question too.

 

OK, that might be only caused you have been manipulating number of terrain layers after RTP component had been added. Checked this on my side and it worked. Just follow guidelines:

1. Make terrain with 12 layers
2. add RTP
3. setup it correctly
- refresh all for LOD manager to be available
- compile shaders with 2 passes and 8 layers in first pass turned on
- setup RTP - missing textures (normals, heights, perlin, etc.).

Note that heightblending don't work between layers of first pass (8) and add pass (4) even if crosspass heightblend is enabled in LOD manager. That's the restriction of using 12 layers on the terrain.

This way or another - I'd suggest - try to reduce number of layers. Your setup will work much better (faster).

Tom

 

From what you're telling I'm not sure about the issue you've got. If you'd like to have Unity terrain look (alpha blend between layers) - don't use heightmaps, but what might be the reason you don't like using heightblend ? It's core RTP functionality. W/o heightblending it makes no sense . Or give me a screenshot of what 've got. We need heightmaps for all layers. Sometimes (esp. in deferred) you could get strange blending results between first pass layer and add pass layer.

Tom

 

No, there is something wrong with script, becouse when I remove RTP script from terrain and LODmanager from hierarchy and add RTP again with 12 layers and U4 materials, first pass, add pass and far distance, everything is ok. Until I hit recompile shaders button. I can't create terrain from scratch and I hope, it's only due to unhanded exception about layers array.

 

Quite weird. Could you give me exact list of operations you make on fresh project with new RTP3.1g installed ? I could try to follow to get the same error on my side. Anyway - don't worry. This is something one could expect (even though it's bad - I know) and won't stop you from using RTP the way you need in the end.

On my side I made terrain with 12 layers. Then imported RTP. Added RTP script. refresh all to get LOD manager. Then U4 materials, first pass - 8 layers, add pass 4 layers. Recompiled scripts. Everything worked fine.

Tom

 

Hey,
thanks for reply. I have to admit I'm still a very new to terrain texturing. So what I did is add RTP and create a standard terrain. I followed your tutorial to choose the options like coverage source splats and set on active like you did. I had no files to insert there just the textures so i left blank. The textures themself I just have detail and normalmap but no heightmaps.

The edge problem I talk about you can see in rtp01.jpg . Later I added a 5th texture too and it has some strange glow.. I know I have to learn something about it but I could need a hint to the correct direction for learning I guess. About standard Unity terrain I can just paint the textures and if I click less it's bit mixed. This in the screenshots you can see was just one single click. So question is if I can have the painting itself somehow be more like if I click less it's mixed and once I paint longer it's full but not at edge. Something about how much opacity and paint over ? I apologize that I don't find correct words. Not my main language.

If you compare rtp01.jpg and rtp03.jpg you can see what's the effect I talk about. I would like to use rtp but get the transition look like in rtp03. The textures is paint on same height. Just flat. So I would as a newbie guess the issue is not something about a heightmap or so. It's all painted manually. Of course I know it's smart to later use a tool like world machine to help on terrain creation but at the moment Iam trying to learn a bit manually. I just can't figure out why this effect looks so different. Guess there is a option somewhere for it ? Or is it smarter to first paint in standard Unity and add RTP to the terrain later maybe ?

Thanks for your time answering

 

If you don't use heightmaps they are considered to be flat (white). However alpha blending won't look the same as in Unity default shader because I compress blend value (stronger contrast). You can modify it a bit unchecking sharped heightblwnd edges option in LOD manager. Still - I see no reason to not use heightmaps. Even if you would make them from grayscale detail maps overall effect will look more natural IMHO. So - you can make effect like on rtp03.jpg but might be not that "soft" when you don't use heightmaps.

Your 2nd screenshot bothered me much, and as you haven't told us how did you make this I was inspecting the issue myself . It turned out that in SOME specific situations in deferred blending between first and addpass might be screwed ! It doesn't happen on my example scene, that's why I wasn't aware about the issue. In the end I can not tell why and when it happen. It just happens... Anyway - I was able to reproduce your screenshot on another scene in deferred which is very odd... The culprit is finalColor function in surface shader (thich is controlled by Unity surface shader compiler out of my scope).
To fix it you need to open RTP_AddBase.cginc and find all customFog fog definitions (there are a few each for different kind of fog used in RTP). You need to add this line at the end of each function:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. color.a=o.Alpha;
3.  

so for example this part of code:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. #if defined(RTP_FOG_LINEAR)
3.    void customFog (Input IN, RTPSurfaceOutput o, inout fixed4 color) {
4.      float f=saturate((_Fend-IN._uv_Relief.w)/(_Fend-_Fstart));
5.      #ifdef UNITY_PASS_FORWARDADD
6.        color.rgb*=f;
7.      #else          
8.        color.rgb=lerp(_FColor, color.rgb, f);
9.      #endif
10.    }
11. #else
12.  

should now look like this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. #if defined(RTP_FOG_LINEAR)
3.    void customFog (Input IN, RTPSurfaceOutput o, inout fixed4 color) {
4.      float f=saturate((_Fend-IN._uv_Relief.w)/(_Fend-_Fstart));
5.      #ifdef UNITY_PASS_FORWARDADD
6.        color.rgb*=f;
7.      #else          
8.        color.rgb=lerp(_FColor, color.rgb, f);
9.      #endif
10.      color.a=o.Alpha; // line added to fix blending in deferred
11.    }
12. #else
13.  

and this (part for no fog):

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     #else
3.        void customFog (Input IN, RTPSurfaceOutput o, inout fixed4 color) {
4.        }
5.      #endif
6.  

will turn into this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     #else
3.        void customFog (Input IN, RTPSurfaceOutput o, inout fixed4 color) {
4.          color.a=o.Alpha; // line added to fix blending in deferred
5.        }
6.      #endif
7.  

It seems like Unity sometimes doesn't handle final output shader color alpha channel correctly. I'll include this fix in next RTP update, too.

ATB, Tom

 

hey i might get this after Christmas and was wandering how flexible the snow is as i plan on having different seasons in my project, well summer and winter. also was wandering what sort of problems i may run into using Unity 5, The new Differed lighting, Linear Color Space and HDR. if it helps im also using Unistorm to create my weather variations. also i suppose is it possible to make the terrain look wetter as well.

cheers

 

Hey Tomasz,

Will RPT work fine with deferred rendering?
Are there any shortcomings/advantages in comparison with forward rendering?
What about terrain holes, is it possible to use them in deferred rendering?

Thanks.

 

Hey, well about 2nd screenshot I first added 4 textures and tested around, doing like the first half of your base tutorial. Then I thought I can go up to 8 different textures and added a 5th one. Just added it like the others and got that glow. So nothing special I did but maybe I forgot something. Thx for the fix on this I will try to do that but might take me a bit.

About heightmaps you are propably correct. My problem is more that I don't know how to get them. Could not find them for that textures and don't know how to make some. So I guess I will try to learn more about those next. I will test and try to learn more. Thanks for fast replies.

 

Heightmaps - make them in Bitmap2Material or crazy bump or something like this (out of diffuse color textures). You are not supposed to add 5th texture. You should work either on 4, 8 or 12 layers. However 8 layers is most common scenario. So - make Unity terrain with 8 layers. Then add RTP component and look around.

Go to first page of this thread and run webplayer with demo. You can switch to forward/deferred and see how it look like. Of course we talk about classic "legacy" deferred mode, not new U5 deferred mode (one geom render pass into multiple render targets). For U5 I'm still inspecting possibility to make it working in new deferred mode which would mean low drawcalls/polycount no matter the number of lights that affects the terrain surface. In current ("legacy") deferred we've got it realised in 2 passes (2x more drawcalls and triangles processed).

As I said above- I'm looking into this and will report you on what can be done. U5 beta is practically not documented on new deferred mode so it's hard to figure out how does it work.

Tom

 

yh thats fine, thats why i said i would buy after christmas.

 

hey tom, if i already have a terrain in place that has been textured with Unity's terrain system, and i also have a seperate terrain hole system, when i switch to RTP, will those things be kept intact? or would i need to start completely over from fresh?

i have an island mostly built and textured, but it still looks terrible, i want to switch to RTP but dont want to have to start all over again.

 

RTP base is standard Unity terrain but rendered using supa-cool advanced AAA hypersonic shaders . So - the answer is - yes - you can switch to RTP, but keep in mind:

1. RTP works best on 4 or 8 layers. If your terrain has for example 9 layers you need to reduce it. 5 layers also is bad. It's better to add layers (shader won't run any slower).
2. visual results on textures blending will be different comparing to what you've got now due to heightblending
3. you need to use additional textures like detail normalmaps, heithmaps and proper gloss map (placed in alpha channel of diffuse color texture) to get most of RTP. Follow my videos and docs.

For hole system - it depends on what you've got now. RTP hole system is hole mask spanned over whole terrain and placed in alpha channel of global colormap. Where its completely blakc you'll get a hole. RTP has hole collision resolver for colliders. Look at my example scene in package how it works like. My webplayer interactive demo (first page of the thread) shows it in action.

Tom

 

I'am working on a terrain that is mostly snow, the problem is that the perlin normal map is way to strong on the snow layer. Is it possible to reduce the effect the normal map has on the snowlayer like you can for each layer?

 

Unity 5 beta 12 is out!
With new physical based shading (so it would be possible to use it in RTP in future I hope)
Shaders: Surface shaders can use physically based shading now; the same as Standard shader uses.

• Use "Standard" lighting function, and "SurfaceOutputStandard" output structure.
• Do an #include "UnityPBSLighting.cginc" in your shader to get it.
• Default options require shader model 3.0, so add a "#pragma target 3.0" too.

 

unity 12 dam i cant keep up with the betas, get RTP working with it for after christmas and i will definitely buy it.

 

This value is fixed inside shader as far as I remember. I'll see where and let you know so you can tweak it manually.

That's good because this means PBR for all users (even those who are not PBR or shader experts because simple surface shaders are quite easy to write). RTP has it's own PBR implementation since 3.1. Can't tell if better (no "asperity term nor "Disney diffuse model"), but I'm pretty sure its quite decent one. I'm messing with Unity5 PBR for a few days now and I was able to "hack" it, I mean forcing my shaders to work with Unity specular probes before beta 12 came out . I can't tell much more here about details because I'm not supposed to do it (pros, cons, odds, etc.)... Anyway I've got POM self-shadowed with PBR, dynamic lighting and reflection probes in kind of "ubershader" I wrote for new release of [Modular] SCI-FI package.

Anyway - new deferred in Unity5 will make it possible to use nice PBR with dynamic lights. Haven't look at release notes if they implemented Enlighten for terrain (dynamic lo-freq lighting on terrain surface).

Tom

 

Nice to know thanks. Just curious, ambient probe or ambient lightning from sky is possible too?

Still not sure how it will be with support of RTP for enlighten lightmapping etc. It's probably too early to ask, with missing implementation from unity.

Peter

 

Yes, we're still waiting for Unity to come up with working solution. Terrain is hard to handle because:

1. It doesn't have fixed, "static" mesh that can be processed by dynamic lightmapper. Maybe I'm wrong here because I haven't analysed how it's resolved internally. Anyway - terrain need to be part "systems" set then will react to dynamic lighting changes with GI. Such indirect lighting would be lovely indeed.
2. It's very big mesh so which probe to choose ? In fact we would need more ambient probes distributed across terrain. This moment we can select one probe - global spec cubemap and global diffuse IBL (from cubemap or from SH provided by Skyshop I've integrated with RTP by Monkeyscience permission).

Tom

 

Find this in RTP_Base.cginc (and RTP_AddBase.cginc in case you're using snow on add pass):

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.    #ifdef RTP_SNOW    
3.      float3 norm_for_snow=norm_far*0.3;
4.      norm_for_snow.z+=0.7;
5.    #endif
6.  

Snow perlin normals depends on above and depends on amount of perlin that's applied per layer. So, if you replace it withthis:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.    #ifdef RTP_SNOW    
3.      float3 norm_for_snow=norm_far*0.1;
4.      norm_for_snow.z+=0.9;
5.    #endif
6.  

you'll get reduced perlin. If you make it like this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.    #ifdef RTP_SNOW    
3.      float3 norm_for_snow=float3(0,0,1); // completely flat
4.    #endif
5.  

You get flat snow, but still - underlying layer perlin influence this. However there is simple trick to overcome this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.    #ifdef RTP_SNOW    
3.      float3 norm_for_snow=norm_far*0.1;
4.      norm_for_snow.z+=10;
5.    #endif
6.  

We pump up z component up to 10 so when it's composed tiwh layer normalmap "flatness" takes precedence here. Normal itself will be correct because it's normalised to length of 1 in the end.

ATB, Tom

 

Thank it works perfectly one question though, if I recompile the shaders would I have to change this value again?

 

No, it's fixed in shader code when you do it it's permanent change (until you upgrade to next RTP version which will overwrite RTP_Base.cginc file... )

Tom

 

Hi Tom, really impressed with some of the videos I have seen and will be buying soon. Question is, if I buy it now for use in Unity 4 (I haven't played with the U5 betas, I am still new to this) what happens when you update it for U5 ? Is there an upgrade price or free upgrade ? Thanks.

 

Hey Tom,

Been working with Unity 5 B12 but getting the following errors when working with RTP

Shader error in 'Relief Pack/ReliefTerrain-FarOnly': Too many texture interpolators would be used for ForwardBase pass (11 out of max 10) at line 35 (on )

Shader error in 'Relief Pack/ReliefTerrain-FirstPass': Too many texture interpolators would be used for ForwardBase pass (11 out of max 10) at line 441 (on )

Basic setup nothing special with the config, just RTP on Terrain First Pass and Far Distance, the rest is default, what happens is the terrain is just pink, if I disable them then the terrain is black.


Thoughts?

 

This is such a cool asset... You did a really great job!

I haven't purchased it yet and have been holding out for a potential Unity 5 version. Realtime GI would be awesome. Are there any plans to do this at some point with RTP?

 

Yes tried using Unity 5 beta 12 today and exactly the same pink terrain with the same shader errors. I don't think RTP supports unity 5 beta yet. Tom? Oh by the way terrain composer is working fine with Unity 5 beta 12 which is great news.

 

Just because TC doesn't need to rely on new shader/rendering pipeline... .

I've got so many Unity5 inquires, so I'll probably submit new version before Unity5 official is out. The risk is that they're still working on it and with each new beta many technical details change drastically. Anyway, if you're on beta12 Unity5 there are only 2 problems and fix guidelines are:

1. we still can't use 8 layers mode (filled bug report on this before - "SplatCount" tag int errain shader doesn't work anymore). Use 4+4 mode if you need 8 layers.
2. in every problematic (pink) shader find :

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. #pragma surface surf CustomBlinnPhong ...
3.  

and add nodynlightmap at the end of those lines. So far terrains don't handle emlighten GI so it doesn't matter. Later we might be able to use this in native deferred which I will implement for incoming release (in current RTP3.1g version terrain is rendered in forward when we select new deferred mode).

This will, however change the way PBR is computed and will look like Unity's PBS shading rather than RTP PBL implementatio. We could either override Unity's deferred PBL to fir RTP one, but make the ooposite. But I think 2nd option is better (I mean using Unity PBR lighting only) as everything will be rendered the same way - terrain and other objects.

Tom

 

Tom,

Many thanks for the quick reply on this issue. I myself like a lot of people are dipping their toes very quickly into Unity 5 beta especially since a lot of stuff (SpeedTree, TC and the new GUI seems to be merging fast). I'm not sure if i really understood your reasoning around Unity PBL or the RTP Option but i reckon on using the unity PBL since it keeps everything alot more standardised and ultimately less shader conflicts and issues to deal with moving forwards. Giving that RTP is really the standard of choice now for terrains by most serious indies and pro's its worth a thought.

Just tried the instructions to get it working on Unity 5 and there are other issues so its not working yet. So if i click on Use Unity Materials and don't select 8 layers will this use 4x4 mode? Its what i did but i get the following errors

Material doesn't have a texture property '_Control'
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor:ApplyMaterialPropertyDrawers(Material)

Material doesn't have a texture property '_Splat3'
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor:ApplyMaterialPropertyDrawers(Material)

Material doesn't have a texture property '_Splat2'
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor:ApplyMaterialPropertyDrawers(Material)

Material doesn't have a texture property '_Splat1'
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor:ApplyMaterialPropertyDrawers(Material)

Material doesn't have a texture property '_Splat0'
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor:ApplyMaterialPropertyDrawers(Material)

 

I am also looking forward to seeing RTP v3 official supporting Unity 5 beta sooner rather than latter

 

Unity5 beta12 - it worked for me. For 8 layers you need to select first pass and add pass and UNSELECT 8 layers mode in first pass (it is by default). For the errors you've got could you show me ouput of shader compilation ? (from shader inspector view).

Tom

 

Hi Tom, don't mean to be rude but you missed my query. If you are not sure yet, no worries. Thanks

 

Not sure if I'm correct. But it seems that in Unity 5 b13 it looks that GI is calculated on terrain?

Here are settings I tried:
Realtime sky is unchecked and terrain is set to static and as you can try in GI baked view I see bluish baked map.

If I set realtime sky to checked it lights terrain only if terrain is static. If I uncheck static on terrrain it's not lit with realtime sky. Not sure if it's bug or no.

 

Sorry. No, I plan to make it working in U5 as regular product update, so you get it for free even if you buy it now.

Tom

 

I found out what is causing this error. If i do your changes and run in DX11 it works. However if i turn off DX11 in player preferences then the following error occurs. You can probably re-create this issue now.

 

Is it possible to use local instead of global colormap/normalmaps with RTP? I have a procedural terrain where the global map is not 'known' ahead of time and would prefer to not regenerate one when a chunk is loaded.

 

Yes, you can skip global normalmap and take normals from your mesh. It's just another LOD manager feature. Global colormap - it can't be disabled in LOD manager, but you can try doing this manually in RTP_Base.cginc. You can also feed RTP with any "dummy" white texture (4x4 pixels) and turn off global colormap blending.

Tom